Another Monarch Nosferatu

Modeling Subjects Figures and Misc.
1

This is the Nosferatu kit by Monarch, in 1/8 scale.

Construction was pretty easy, it’s mostly straight out of the box. It’s a styrene kit, so of course there were a lot of seams to fill, every last one of them in very visible places. The seam that ran up the sides and over the top of his head was particularly problematic, because of the hair and the ears. Sand, putty, re-sand, re-putty, etc.

I wanted to put the skull on the floor near the stairs, so as to hide the open space that was visible under them. Unfortunately, the spider interfered w/ that placement - a large tab sticking out of its underside fitted into a slot in the wall at that location. Undaunted, I sanded off the tab and filled the slot w/ Aves Apoxie Sculpt. I then mounted the spider on a thin brass rod and moved him up the wall a bit.

When painting the spider, I did a Google search for images to give me some inspiration. Let me just say that there are some scary looking spiders out there, and the pictures of spider bites were pretty gruesome too. Yoinks!

I painted the model almost completely w/ Model Master enamels. I kinda wanted to paint it like the image on the box cover, which has Nossy dressed in a bright red jacket in front of a dark blue background, but I didn’t want the finished model to look quite that bright, so I toned the colors down a little bit.

I used cool colors for the base - Anthacite Grey for the stones in the rear wall and column, Light Sea Grey for the plaster like surface, and Aggressor Grey for the flagstones and stairs.

I then used warmer earth tones for the figure’s clothing - Raw Umber for the pants, Burnt Sienna for the jacket, Burnt Umber mixed w/ Black for the shoes and Burnt Umber + Burnt Sienna for the collar and cuffs.

The base color for his skin is Camouflage Grey mixed w/ Light Sea Grey. I mixed in some Burnt Umber for the shadow color. The whites of the eyes are Camo Grey mixed w/ Tan - I applied a glaze of acrylic Canary Yellow, and a wash of Burnt Sienna mixed w/ Red.

This model took a Gold Award in the Horror category at Wonderfest in 2010, my first ever. Naturally, I’m quite happy w/ the way he turned out.

2

Very nicely done. Congrats on the Award.

Regards, Rick

3

Very well done!

4

Thank you gentlemen. I’m glad for the opportunity to share it. [:)]

5

Fantastic job! I esp love the ‘skin’ tones you used to give him an unearthly supernatural look.

Congrads on the award, well deserved sir!

6

Thank you sir, I’m glad you like it.

The skin tones were an interesting challenge. My DVD of the original “Nosferatu” is obviously in black & white, so that didn’t help much (he mostly appears pure white). The box cover and instructions for this kit had him a shade of light blue (!), and I didn’t want to do that either.

I think if I had it to do over, I’d mix in a small amount of a flesh color, or some Raw Sienna.

I heard a rumor that a Lugosi Dracula kit is coming from this company soon. If so, I’ll try that mixture when painting his skin color.

7

Cool, although as I said I really like how the skin came out the way you did it here. Although with a little flesh it’d look good too- just as long as you don’t do a ‘sparkly’ vampire [:D]

If you do the Lugosi please post it, I’d love to see it.

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LOL! You have my solemn word sir, that I shall never paint a sparkly vampire. [:D]

Okay. In the mean time, I got a Polar Lights James Bond/Oddjob combo I’m working on. Maybe I’ll post those. [:)]

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Found something. This leads me to believe that the folks over at Adult Swim might be into figure modeling:

10

It looks great man. I especially love the tone on his jacket. You definately deserved the medal. I like that you looked up real spider photos. I couldn’t have done it, I’m a total arachniphobe.

11

Deserves an award! Very clean, excellent shading, great eyes, overall awesome! The skin tone does look a little lifeless but… [whstl] [;)]

12

It looks outstanding. If the parts fit anywhere as badly as the Monarch Sinbad I’m currently working on you deserve every prize in the book!

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Hey SG! Good to see you! A couple of us were just lamenting that you hadn’t been around! [:D]

Thanks for the complements, I appreciate it. [H]

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Thank you sir.

Heh! Parts fit was okay, but not great. Lots of sanding and filling. Similar to the figure in the Sinbad kit…

I’m working on that Sinbad kit now, and I agree it’s a piece of work. Except for the place where the neck meets the chest, parts fit on the figure isn’t too bad, but the base elements are just a mess. Huge gaps, pieces don’t fit together… wouldn’t be so bad but the figure is perched on a vine that just doesn’t line up where it’s supposed to.

Nossy here wasn’t so bad because the base elements are relatively simple, and the figure itself is mostly straight lines. If I had it to do over again, I’d putty the space around the last step to blend it better w/ the floor.